View from the Top

Drive “nord” from Montreal on Autoroute 15 and it won’t take long for you to be in ski country.

It seems like every little village has a ski area, mostly modest old-fashioned places with a handful of lifts. Look closely and you’ll spot some former ski areas; you can still see where the trails were cut from the forest and the rusty old lift equipment. I’m sure a lot of people have looked up those hills and thought about reopening one of those places — and then did a tiny bit of math in their head.

Anyway, keep driving and you’ll get to the gargantuan Mont Treblant, now more
town than ski resort. This behemoth is probably what put some of those smaller
places out of business, and is now not just a place to ski, but a year-round destination. We found ourselves there on a hazy summer day recently, and took the gondola up to the top.

Here’s a picture of what it looked like from up there:

Wow! Look at that view of the… chairs.

Impressive, huh? By the way, it cost us $16 each to take in that amazing view of the clouds. Indeed, I have rarely ever had such an amazing view of clouds. At lease we didn’t walk up. I wanted to yell down at hikers as we descended, “Turn back! You can’t see anything!”

No big deal. We had several wonderful days exploring the little towns in the Laurentians and eating great food. And everyone was very tolerant of our English.